


Cacti in the Desert

by Eramia



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Emotional, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Family Loss, Florawatch Zine, Gen, Hurt, Loss, Loss of Parent(s), Sad and Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23580790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eramia/pseuds/Eramia
Summary: After a mission goes fatally wrong, Fareeha “Pharah” Amari is relocated to the more peaceful Watchpoint: Grand Mesa for some peace and quiet. Unfortunately for her, there’s an intruder. When a well-aimed pulse rifle shot makes her suit malfunction, she wakes up in the desert and those nagging thoughts in her head just won’t leave her alone. Worst of all, the heat isn’t helping and she’s starting to see things, like her late Squadron Leader and her dead mother.
Kudos: 3





	Cacti in the Desert

When I began military training, we were often reminded of what history has given us.

Honor.

Legacy.

Strength.

But when I think about what those before me have left behind, I can’t help but wonder. What _has_ been left for me? What was given to me in the first place that was not later taken away?

I woke up in what felt like an oven, broiling in heat, impossibly hot. Everything was dark and sunless. It took me a moment to remember myself, I had my spinning head and aching body to thank for that. I don’t believe I’m injured. It’s better to check to be sure. I don’t believe I have a concussion of any sort, but I should mentally run through my personal information to check.

Name? Fareeha Amari, call sign: Pharah.

Age? Thirty-two.

Position? Security Chief. Previously stationed in Giza Plateau, Egypt at the Temple of Anubis. Recently relocated to Watchpoint: Grand Mesa in Grand Mesa, Colorado.

The last thing I remember? We were defending against a solo intruder.

Good. It seems I remember everything that’s important.

I move my arms to push off from the ground and lift myself up. My arms feel heavy. My hands seem to sink into the ground. I’m barely on my knees when the Raptora Mark VI starts flashing an error sign to me in bright red.

Error: System Down. Suit temperature rising.

Damn. I have no choice but to take off my helmet to keep from cooking alive.

I don’t know which was worse: being in a hot, metal suit with no air conditioning, or being out of it. I sit back on my feet and take off my helmet slowly but not slowly enough. At the slightest crack, sunlight barges in and blinds me. I squeeze my eyes shut as tight as I can. My vision goes white for a moment. It settles a little bit when I shield my eyes with my hand.

In front of me, the desert stretches on as far as the eye can see. I can’t seem to look at anything without squinting. The ground, the sky, it’s all too bright. My eyes ache. Everything aches. I have to keep moving forward. I tap the compass embedded into the forearm of my suit. I don’t have time to play eenie-meenie-miny-mo, so I just pick a direction and start walking. One of the patrols should be out looking for me.

Yes, the last thing I remember was the intruder at Watchpoint: Grand Mesa. 

I hate to admit it but I have no idea how this man got in. He must’ve had access to classified information, how else could he evade security so easily? Perhaps he was previous military personnel. That would explain his maneuvering technique. He certainly fights like one.

I should know. It’s because of his well-placed shot with a prototype heavy pulse rifle to one of my boosters that my suit malfunctioned and practically launched me to the middle of the desert.  Thankfully, I’m alive. I don’t know if I can say that for my crew, although the intruder didn’t seem intent on harming anyone. Not that he spoke in any way, but he delivered no fatal blows to any of my teammates. Such a technique in his incapacitation. I can’t help but think, could he have been an Overwatch agent?

That can’t be possible. Overwatch disbanded long before I was old enough to join my nation’s own military. Overwatch was a time of a past age, an age where the world was united. An age that my mother was a part of, and I would never be.

  
  


Surely, I must be dehydrated. I have to be delirious.

I must be because Khalil is walking beside me.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

_ The line between the world of the living and the world of the dead must be blurring if you are here, Captain. _

“I’m not the captain anymore. That role has been delegated to you, Pharah.”

_ Hah. Delegated is one way to put it, is it not? _

“Sure, if you want to get into technicalities, Officer.”

The mirage says nothing for a while, merely strolling beside me in her old uniform during our time at Giza. She isn’t sweating, but I guess sweat cannot grace what it cannot touch.

_ You’re dead, _ I think to myself,  _ I know. You are not really here. _

“That’s no way to greet your previous Captain, is it?”

_ Please. Leave me alone. _

The heat isn’t letting up, but I’m not either. I continue to trek as Khalil follows behind me.

“Aren’t you happy to see me, Fareeha?”

_ No. I am busy. You are not really here. _

“Perhaps if I was someone else?”

Now, I turn.

The mirage of Khalil had transformed. In her place was my mother before her last mission in Overwatch. Same cloak, same braid of greying hair, same Horus tattoo. I feel my fists ball without my telling them. Already they are sweaty.

“You understand, Fareeha, why I had to go away?”

Whether it is because the sun is too bright or because I don’t know yet how to face my mother, I look away.

_ Protecting people is an ugly job. I know that now. It is cruel but necessary. _

I keep walking, trying to remind myself that this is a mirage, a mere figment of my imagination, a manifestation of my past trying to haunt me now when I am at my most vulnerable.

Well. It’s working.

The hallucination follows.

_ Part of me wonders why evil seems to always prevail, why we can never keep everyone safe. _

“Because it is impossible, Fareeha. It cannot be promised.”

_ I wish it could. If it were, I promise it to each and every being on Earth. _

“I know you would.”

_ Then tell me why I shouldn’t just lay down where I stand and bake in my suit? _

“Oh, my child. Please don’t doubt yourself. You’re doing the best you can in the conditions given.”

I don’t respond, but I don’t stop either.

“I was trying to make the world a better place for you. I tried so hard.”

_ It’s not your fault, Mother. I just need to do better. _

“No, my dear. You are doing all that you can and that is enough.”

I think, if I keep walking, eventually I will shed this nagging thought that, in a way literally, follows me. But I feel my limbs grow heavy with exhaustion. I don’t know how much longer I can keep walking.

“Fareeha, look.”

I glance over my shoulder at my mother, who is pointing at a cactus in the distance. Contrary to popular belief, there are no cacti in the deserts of Egypt. In mid-western American, however, they are quite common.

_ It is a cactus, Mother. _

“Yes, it sure is.” I hear her chuckle. “It reminds me so much of you.”

She’s piqued my curiosity, or maybe I’m just tired of wandering.

_ In what way? _

I can see under her hood that she is smiling. “They’re so resilient, even in the worst conditions. No other plant could survive out here like they do. It’s really inspiring, isn’t it?” She turns to me now. “Faheera. You are so strong and so brave. I never wanted you to join Overwatch. I never wanted you to get hurt. But I couldn’t ask for a better daughter.”

She comes up to me. I let her put her arms around me. “I’m so proud of you,” she whispers.

At that point, the heat got to me, I believe. Or maybe it was just hearing those words that made me collapse in the way that I did, falling right to my knees, bringing her with me.

It has been so long. I wish I could hug her too.

But when I try I am only hugging myself. Alone.

It is a pitiful situation to be finding myself in. A security captain lost in the middle of the desert, collapsed in the sand, hugging herself and crying out what little liquid she has left in her body. It is so short-lived that my eyes can do nothing more than water and gloss over, but no tears fall. It is much too hot for that and my body decides it needs every last drop.

Yes. I agree too.

I hear the wind hit my ears in choppy waves and in the distance, I see a security helicopter. I do my best to stand, at least look slightly more presentable than I was just now. Try to look like this didn’t actually happen.

For once, I am not ashamed to say that I was helped into the vehicle. Before I knew it, I was whisked away back to base, treated, and resumed back to work by the next day after seeing that my injuries were not that severe.

I still think about that conversation. It may or may not have happened, just like how my mother may or may not really be alive. But if she is, then I truly do want to do her proud and leave the world a better, safer place than I left it. If not for her, then for me.

Oh, and in totally unrelated news, I got a new friend for my desk. I was told that cacti and other succulents are very “office friendly”. Good for clearing the air or something of the sort. I made note of that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!~ <3
> 
> This piece was a part of Florawatch, a flower/plant-themed Overwatch zine. I hope you liked it!


End file.
